The Honorable Russell Pearce elected by wide margin in state-wide race!

Arizona’s Republican elected state committeemen — assembled from all of the state’s fifteen counties — met today to elect their State GOP officers for the next two years. The results of the election and the vote totals are:

First Vice-Chair: Russell Pearce (668), Diane Ortiz-Parsons (441)

Second Vice-Chair: Parralee Schneider (644), Stephen Viramontes (463)

Third Vice-Chair: Chad Palmer (550), John Duane Rhodes (547)

Assistant Treasurer: Andrew Stevens (730), John Stevens (275)

The following candidates were unopposed and were elected by acclamation:

Assistant Secretary: Deborrah Miller

Sergeant-At-Arms: Alberto Gutier

Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms: Chris Campbell

Congratulations are in order to all of the new officers!

UPDATE:

These are the results of the AZ GOP Unofficial Straw poll:

Newt Gingrich: 20 votes

Ron Paul: 256 votes

Rick Santorum: 8 votes

Mitt Romney: 17 votes

To view these numbers in perspective, balance them against the fact that the ballots were sold as a party fundraiser at $10 apiece. The poll is called “unofficial” for a reason.

Ron Paul enthusiasts are all about appearances. Today they were out in force, although many of them are not state committeemen and were unable to vote in the election of party officers. That did not preclude them from purchasing ballots, which no doubt made the AZ GOP very happy.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne has announced the arrests of 14 of 15 suspected members of a large-scale marijuana and cocaine trafficking organization. This organization has smuggled over 19.1 kilograms of cocaine and 2,952 pounds of marijuana into the United States since December of 2010 with a Tucson street value estimated to be between $2,631,600 and $2,126,400.

This criminal enterprise has been active for more than ten years in smuggling large amounts of marijuana and cocaine into the United States through the Nogales Port of Entry.

“This is yet another in a growing list of examples why the Arizona border with Mexico is not secure,” Horne said. “For this criminal operation to exist for the better part of a decade trafficking millions of dollars worth of poison into Arizona is outrageous and helps to define the critical nature of this problem. The level of violent criminal activity near the border and throughout much of Arizona at large is a direct result of the drug trade, and it simply cannot continue. In the meantime, the policy of the federal government remains to peddle the fiction that the border is as secure as it has ever been. It clearly is not, and I reiterate my call to the administration to do more to address this crisis.”

Agencies working in cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations Strike Force are the U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Marshal’s Service, Nogales Police Department, Tucson Police Department, Department of Public Safety, and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

Read more, including the multiple charges included in the indictment here.

Mug shots of those arrested in connection with this organized criminal ring linked to a Mexican drug cartel can be seen here

The State Committee of the Arizona Republican Party will hold its mandatory meeting tomorrow — Saturday, January 28 — where elected state committeemen will choose their officers for the next two years. This is an important election, setting the stage for the AZ GOP as it enters the crucial 2012 election.

In the race for AZ GOP 3rd Vice-Chair there are two candidates offering a clear choice. Chad Palmer, an LD-1 State Committeeman from Prescott is the strong conservative who presents a robust contrast to Graham County GOP Chairman John “J. Duane” Rhodes.

Rhodes, an establishment cohort, endorsed John McCain over conservative JD Hayworth in the 2010 U.S. Senate race. Rhodes and fellow moderate — former state Rep. Bill Konopnicki — are Co-Chairmen of Jeff Flake’s campaign in Graham County.

The energetic Chad Palmer is the well qualified and dependable conservative choice for the Third Vice-Chair position. Based on his values and dedication, he has won the endorsement of Sen. Ron Gould. We also urge his support.

The Arizona Capitol Times is reporting that House Speaker Andy Tobin has introduced a host of measures that would set a special election enabling voters to decide whether to use legislative and congressional maps drawn by elected legislators representing constituencies — as was the practice prior to the passage of Prop. 106 in 2000. Democrats and Republicans worked together to draw the lines.

Arizonans are currently faced with oddly configured and decidedly partisan maps approved last month by Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission.

As we have noted, the Commission is hardly “Independent” but actually leans left. Read our previous post to reacquaint yourself with the sham that masquerades as being impartial committee of volunteers.

Mathis would have us believe it was sheer coincidence that Ken Strasma, the national target director of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign is president of Washington D.C. based Strategic Telemetry.

In a survey of likely Arizona Congressional District 8 primary voters released this week, Jesse Kelly holds a strong lead over the other prospective Republican candidates.

Kelly’s lead far surpasses that of both State Senator Frank Antenori (R-Dist. 30) and Tucson sports broadcaster Dave Sitton. Kelly, a conservative, has a combined 35% of definite and leaning voters. The same measure for Antenori is 15%, while Sitton holds 7%.

Primary voters support Kelly over Antenori by a ratio of 2.4 to 1.

In response to the results, Kelly stated, “We are humbled by the strong support from the people of Southern Arizona. I have heard from many families who are ready for Congress to focus on improving the economy and helping the private sector create good paying jobs in Arizona.”

The TelOpinion Research poll was conducted on the 24th and 25th of January, 2012 and sampled 300 likely primary voters from throughout the current Congressional District 8 in Arizona.

Jesse Kelly works in the private sector as a project manager for a construction firm. He and his wife live in Pima County, where they are raising their two sons.

This is the high stakes debate preceding the Florida primary. The latest public opinion polls show that the battle for Florida’s 50 winner-take-all delegates — the largest prize so far this primary and caucus season — is becoming a two-man race between Romney and Gingrich. According to a CNN/Time/ORC International survey released Wednesday, 36% of people likely to vote in Tuesday’s Republican primary in Florida say they are backing Romney as the party’s nominee, with 34% supporting Gingrich. Romney’s 2-point margin over Gingrich is well within the survey’s margin of error. The other two candidates lag far behind, with Rick Santorum polling at 11% and Ron Paul at 9% — 7% still remain unsure. With their low numbers, the time is ripe for Santorum and Paul to bow out and endorse the candidate who can beat Barack Obama – Mitt Romney.

Newt Gingrich has been touting service in the House under Ronald Reagan, yet in 1988, he warned George H. W. Bush not to run as “a continuation of Reaganism,” saying he wouldn’t win. Watch this telling video.

Here Newt Gingrich is exposed as rewriting his Reagan connection. What he said in 1983 was Reagan was responsible for “national decay.”

Tom DeLay, a top deputy to Gingrich during the Republican revolution of the mid-1990s, joined the chorus of other conservative members breaking their silence about Gingrich’s erratic leadership style. In this radio interview with KTRH‘s Michael Berry, DeLay said: “He’s not really a conservative. I mean, he’ll tell you what you want to hear. He has an uncanny ability, sort of like Clinton, to feel your pain and know his audience and speak to his audience and fire them up. But when he was speaker, he was erratic, undisciplined.”